Community colleges streamlining university transfer process

NORTH COUNTY —— For decades, the typical community college
student spent a few semesters experimenting with a variety of
academic subjects before choosing a major and selecting a four-year
university to continue his or her studies.

That era has come to an end, however, as the result of a new
emphasis on efficiency at community colleges and the need for
students to pick a major quickly so that they have a chance at
increasingly scarce transfer slots at university campuses.

Officials from Palomar College in San Marcos and MiraCosta
College in Oceanside said last week that they had recently started
an array of new programs to encourage students to pick majors
quickly and avoid languishing in community college for several
years.

"The last couple of years, we have been making a better effort
to inform students that they need to make decisions as soon as
possible," said Berta Cuaron, vice president of instruction at
Palomar.

Students are now shown potential transfer paths as soon as they
arrive on campus, and they get data on how much harder it has
become to transfer to campuses in the Cal State and University of
California systems.

Meanwhile, administrators have been modifying curricula so they
can forge new agreements with universities guaranteeing that
students get credit for their classes after they transfer.

"We've been able to get universities to not only commit to
transfers, but we've also made sure that the courses we teach are
comparable to university courses," said Julie Hatoff, vice
president of instruction at MiraCosta.

Many local officials are hailing this new efficiency as a
tremendous benefit to students, because they are more directed and
less likely to drop out. These officials said the streamlined
process is also saving taxpayers money because students spend fewer
years in community colleges, which are subsidized by the state.

But some officials have said the new protocol can rob students
of the chance to stumble onto an academic subject that they are
passionate about, and other critics have warned that many community
college students need to complete a significant amount of remedial
work before they can even think about picking a major and where to
transfer.

Transfer slots dwindling

Cuaron and Hatoff said the increasing scarcity of transfer slots,
especially at UC and CSU campuses, was the main motivation for the
increased emphasis on picking a major quickly.

"Access to the CSU and UC is getting much more restrictive,"
said Cuaron. "It's in the best interest of the student to choose a
major as soon as possible and get on a schedule that will mean
there is no question about them being accepted. This also helps
them avoid spending extra time in classes that they won't
need."

Lise Flocken, director of the University Transfer Center at
MiraCosta, said many more students have been getting rejected by
their first choice of schools.

"It's much more competitive at UC and CSU campuses than it used
to be," said Flocken.

Statistics from both systems show a sharp upsurge in the number
of applications received in the last few years, and there has
consequently been a sharp increase in the number of students
rejected.